Imaginary Departures

David Mantripp

These four photos, taken at different times, and different, but similar, places in Svalbard, Iceland and Antarctica bring to me the idea of a departure to an unknown, unseen destination. I also find in them the idea of a temporary haven, a brief respite from the storm. They're also all taken in areas of quite spectacular landscape, but which I've turned my back to, at least for a while. And of course they share a common format. There was absolutely no pre-planning involved, this set just fell together while I was working on a completely different theme, but I find it interesting the way that I've repeated some of the aspects of the composition. Not intentionally melancholy, but somehow pointing in that direction.